Sunday, June 5, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 2, 2005 9:27 AM CONTACT: Marijuana Policy Project Bruce Mirken, MPP Director of Communications, 202-543-7972 or 415-668-6403 Milton Friedman, 500+ Economists Call for Marijuana Regulation Debate as New Report Estimates Savings New Report Projects $10-14 Billion Annual Savings and Revenues BOSTON -- June 2 --In a report released today, Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University, estimates that replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year. In response, a group of more than 500 distinguished economists -- led by Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Milton Friedman -- released an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods." Using data from a variety of federal and state government sources, Miron's paper, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," concludes: **Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement-$2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels. **Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco. These estimates may be conservative. Because available data is incomplete, assumptions necessary to produce national estimates inevitably allow for some variation up or down. For example, Miron's report does not include estimates for certain potential savings -- such as the likelihood of fewer criminal justice referrals of marijuana offenders to drug treatment and reduced prison costs stemming from persons on parole or probation being reincarcerated after positive urine tests for marijuana. In addition, Miron based his figure for corrections costs stemming from marijuana prohibition on an estimate that one percent of state prisoners are imprisoned for marijuana- related offenses. A report released May 18 by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy put the figure at 1.6 percent, acknowledging that tens of thousands of Americans are incarcerated in state or federal prisons for marijuana offenses. While Miron notes that many factors beyond costs and tax revenues would need to be considered in evaluating possible changes in marijuana laws, he said, "These budgetary impacts should be included in any rational debate about marijuana policy." Those impacts are considerable, according to officials of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. For example, $14 billion in annual combined annual savings and revenues would cover the securing of all "loose nukes" in the former Soviet Union (estimated by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb at $30 billion) in less than three years. Just one year's savings would cover the full cost of anti-terrorism port security measures required by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. The Coast Guard has estimated these costs, covering 3,150 port facilities and 9,200 vessels, at $7.3 billion total. "As Milton Friedman and over 500 economists have now said, it's time for a serious debate about whether marijuana prohibition makes any sense," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "We know that prohibition hasn't kept marijuana away from kids, since year after year 85% of high school seniors tell government survey-takers that marijuana is 'easy to get.' Conservatives, especially, are beginning to ask whether we're getting our money's worth or simply throwing away billions of tax dollars that might be used to protect America from real threats like those unsecured Soviet-era nukes." Dr. Miron's full report, the open letter to public officials signed by more than 500 economists, and the full list of endorsers are available at http://www.prohibitioncosts.org. 10:29:22 PM    comment []

Published on Sunday, June 5, 2005 by the lndependent/UK US Probes Isle of Man Scheme Used by Billionaire Bush Donors by Jason Nisse The Manhattan District Attorney, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are jointly probing a tax-shelter plan run out of the Isle of Man. The scheme, devised by one of America's biggest banks and used by two billionaire donors to George Bush's election campaign among others, is being probed for possible breaches of securities and anti-money-laundering rules. The investigating bodies believed that up to $100m (£55m) of tax was saved through one scheme alone, and as much as $700m in taxes may have been avoided over an 11-year period. The scheme involved executives and corporations handing over stock to trusts that they declared they neither owned nor controlled. When the options were cashed in, no tax was payable. However, the IRS changed the rules in 2003 to say that tax should be paid anyway. In the previous 11 years, tax schemes were marketed by Bank of America to at least 42 corporations. Earlier this year the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, started probing allegations that some of these trusts were controlled by the people passing on the stock options. Both the IRS and the SEC have now joined in this probe. They have contacted the regulators on the Isle of Man asking for information on one particular scheme used by two Texan billionaire brothers, Charles and Sam Wyly. The duo, who made their money in computing and retailing, not only gave over $200,000 to President Bush's re-election campaigns, but also bankrolled TV adverts attacking his rivals, John Kerry and Senator John McCain. Sam Wyly describes himself as "the entrepreneur's entrepreneur" and came to prominence when he unsuccessfully tried to oust the board of Computer Associates in 2001 - only a year after the brothers sold their Sterling Software business to the group for $4bn. The Isle of Man authorities have passed documents to US investigators relating to 20 different entities linked to the Wyly brothers that are registered in the Irish Sea tax haven. One, Devotion Ltd, is a holding company with two directors and no employees; it is run, according to SEC filings, from a remote farm on the island. Another director, who lives in a terraced house, signed a transfer document for $25m. At one point, Isle of Man entities owned 20 per cent of the shares in Sterling Software, as well as 12.8 per cent of another Wyly group, Michaels Stores, and 42 per cent of a third, Green Mountain Energy. The Isle of Man authorities have said they are co-operating fully with the US investigations, as has Bank of America. A spokesman for the Wyly brothers' lawyers said "they felt they only did what was appropriate". The US authorities said they could not comment on ongoing investigations. © 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd. 10:28:10 PM    comment []

Published on Sunday, June 5, 2005 by the lndependent/UK Judge Orders Pentagon to Release 100 New Photos of Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles A US judge has ordered the Bush administration to release more than 100 new photographs and videos of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, creating a fresh public relations nightmare for government officials as they seek to rebut accusations that the US is sponsoring torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. The ruling comes as Tony Blair prepares to fly to Washington for meetings this week with George Bush. Although the Prime Minister's trip is part of a series of visits to fellow G8 leaders before next month's summit at Gleneagles in Scotland, Downing Street has said that the two men will also discuss Iraq, where violence has recently surged. A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in Baghdad yesterday, seriously wounding two policemen. During the day, hundreds of Iraqi and US troops braved the heat to search fields and farms in an area known as the Triangle of Death, for hideouts used by predominantly Sunni Arab militants to mount suicide attacks against nearby Baghdad. They rounded up at least 108 Iraqis suspected of involvement in the insurgency. Iraqi forces were claiming one major success - the arrest in a raid in Mosul of a senior militant leader, Mullah Mahdi. He is said to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qa'ida follower accused by Washington of masterminding much of the violence against occupation troops. An Iraqi official said the arrest was "very significant". But fresh evidence of abuse at Abu Ghraib is likely to complicate Iraq's already precarious security situation. Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the New York federal court granted a petition by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to release the materials after viewing eight sample photos last week. It is not known exactly what the 144 photographs and videos depict, but they are from the same sources as the graphic images of prisoners being piled up on top of each other, threatened by attack dogs and forced into sexually compromising positions that triggered scandal and outrage just over a year ago. "These images may be ugly and shocking, but they depict how the torture was more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers," said ACLU director Anthony Romero. "The American public deserves to know what is being done in our name. Perhaps after these and other photos are forced into the light of day, the government will at long last appoint an outside special counsel to investigate the torture and abuse of detainees." Government lawyers argued that releasing the photographs would reveal the prisoners' identities, a violation of their rights under the Geneva Conventions. But the ACLU said that objection could be easily overcome by blocking out the prisoners' faces. The judge agreed, and gave the White House until the end of the month to hand over the material. More pointedly, the ACLU also said the government's reasoning was absurd because the violation of the Geneva Conventions began with the abuse, not with attempts to uncover it. But a Pentagon spokesman indicated yesterday that the administration would not give up the materials without a further fight. President Bush has come under increasing scrutiny over his repeated claims to be interested in spreading freedom around the world, most recently in the damning Amnesty International report on conditions at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. The White House has, in turn, responded aggressively to its critics, savaging Amnesty for its use of the word "gulag" to describe Guantanamo and impugning the journalistic ethics of Newsweek magazine over the "Koran-in-the-toilet" story, which was largely, if not wholly, untrue. © 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd. 10:25:54 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Patricia Thurston.